These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus engages the cerebellum for motor function in parkinsonian rats.
    Author: Sutton AC, O'Connor KA, Pilitsis JG, Shin DS.
    Journal: Brain Struct Funct; 2015 Nov; 220(6):3595-609. PubMed ID: 25124274.
    Abstract:
    Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is effective in managing motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease in well-selected individuals. Recently, research has shown that DBS in the basal ganglia (BG) can alter neural circuits beyond the traditional basal ganglia-thalamus-cortical (BG-TH-CX) loop. For instance, functional imaging showed alterations in cerebellar activity with DBS in the subthalamic nucleus (STN). However, these imaging studies revealed very little about how cell-specific cerebellar activity responds to STN stimulation or if these changes contribute to its efficacy. In this study, we assess whether STN-DBS provides efficacy in managing motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease by recruiting cerebellar activity. We do this by applying STN-DBS in hemiparkinsonian rats and simultaneously recording neuronal activity from the STN, brainstem and cerebellum. We found that STN neurons decreased spiking activity by 55% during DBS (P = 0.038), which coincided with a decrease in most pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus and Purkinje neurons by 29% (P < 0.001) and 28% (P = 0.003), respectively. In contrast, spike activity in the deep cerebellar nuclei increased 45% during DBS (P < 0.001), which was likely from reduced afferent activity of Purkinje cells. Then, we applied STN-DBS at sub-therapeutic current along with stimulation of the deep cerebellar nuclei and found similar improvement in forelimb akinesia as with therapeutic STN-DBS alone. This suggests that STN-DBS can engage cerebellar activity to improve parkinsonian motor symptoms. Our study is the first to describe how STN-DBS in Parkinson's disease alters cerebellar activity using electrophysiology in vivo and reveal a potential for stimulating the cerebellum to potentiate deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]